D&D 5E New playtest packet available.

[Obryn]

Arcana allows you to scan the entire dungeon, every twig and piece of rotten fruit lying on the ground, for magic, without any discrimination as to where to use it. I agreed with 4e adding wizards having at-will magic such as magic missile or whatever so they never run out. But at-will detect magic? that's completely un-balanced

I'm still not seeing how this is broken?

-O

 

[Sage Genesis]

Yeah, I really love how in 4e anyone with the most OP skill, Arcana, can scan the entire world for magic at-will for free, with little other training in magic. That's not broken, at all.

Arcana skill is one of the worst features of 4e, not the best. Geez, magic's presence and purpose is about as rare / precious / mysterious as scanning a bag of doritos with your iphone at the 7-11. complete f00bar if you ask me. nobody thought it was remotely balanced if you ask me. At-will read-magic, fine. But at-will detect magic, for anyone with the skill? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!

What is the problem with this, exactly?

First, trying to detect magic takes a full minute. Hardly a very quick and convenient thing to do.

Second, why is magic's presence cheapened by an easier ability to perceive it? Just because people can perceive magic doesn't mean it became any more commonplace for magic to actually be present.

Third, you handle an odd definition of "balance". Being able to detect magic doesn't help anyone overcome monsters or obstacles, especially since you can't casually walk and detect at the same time.

 

[Connorsrpg]

I kinda liked 4E's use of the Arcana skill. As long as it requires concentration and doesn't give too much away straight up. We had fun with that. A bit of hyperbole regarding its balance there.

 

[Gorgoroth]

What is the problem with this, exactly?

First, trying to detect magic takes a full minute. Hardly a very quick and convenient thing to do.

Second, why is magic's presence cheapened by an easier ability to perceive it? Just because people can perceive magic doesn't mean it became any more commonplace for magic to actually be present.

Third, you handle an odd definition of "balance". Being able to detect magic doesn't help anyone overcome monsters or obstacles, especially since you can't casually walk and detect at the same time.

Detect magic ability, in all other editions of the game, are a very limited resource. It's something you might do when you are at a treasure horde and have to pick and chose what to carry home, or when you think there may be a magical trap or effect but need confirmation, yay or nay, to make a better decision.

My answer to your question about my use of the term "balance" is similar to my answer about why it is a bad thing to allow at-will magic scanning.

Okay, so there are 1440 minutes per day, so in theory in 4e you could only use Arcana to detect magic 1440 times maximum, but in real terms, let's be honest here, it's virtually unlimited. I've been in several exploration situations in different groups where arcana was used like a tricorder to scan for magic items, in every single room of the dungeon. And before you say that's cheesy, that's exactly what adventurers hunting treasure should be doing as a matter of course, using their abilities to their maximum benefit, similar to the ten foot pole used to check for traps in previous editions. In fact, it was used to "clean" dungeons of magic loot post monster wipage. It removes the selective, discriminate use of detection spells and reduces it to basically, all magic items in the dungeon might as well be glowing. That is what I dislike about it.

This is an affront to the "exploration" pillar, since it removes mystery and any chance of failure (i.e. missing any magic items in a dungeon). In other editions a M-U could only scan detect magic a few times, and must be selective about which rooms to do it in. This allows for the possibility of failure. Again, yet another instance of why 4e, might seem at first to have offered an innovation in this department, but actually was just a lazy hack to speed up exploration in favor of getting quicker to the next encounter. This is unbalanced. I've seen it in too many 4e games to not see a pattern, and after a while you realize it's baked into the assumptions of rules, the power frequency, and yes, even the skills.

Everybody knows Arcana + Perception are the two uber skills in 4e to have. They are used waaaaaay more often than the others. That's pretty much the definition of unbalanced. Look at the color-coded guides for skill selection in the Wotc official build/ Char Op board threads, arcana is rated sky blue for most int-based classes, and would be so even for all classes, if there were more of a chance of failure. That is a sign of inbalance / OPness.

4e is not balanced, and worse than other editions. It is completely lop-sided in favor of the combat pillar of gameplay, and even skills and utility powers also push the character in that direction. By making it very hard to fail (if not impossible) to find a magic item in a horde amongst thousands, or a magic ring in a room full of dung (true story...our rogue picked up arcana precisely to be able to do this type of "metal detector" for magic items...like those bums on the beach). It is obscene IMO and a perversion of the spirit of D&D, to allow at-will detect magic.

And before any of you assume I am just harping against 4e for this, if DDN allows at-will detect magic I will be similarly dismayed. Knowing there is magic there is half the battle. (or all of it...if you're low on HP, return later...the presence of magic is often bad news when it's at the mouth of a toothy cave entrance and glows red).

One more point : Is not Arcana used for dispell magic too? yet another reason for it being OP. It's like, players are not supposed to ever have to double back, it's always onward to the next encounter-type design. It gets tiring after a while. Just because I know there are strings holding up the puppets around me virtual environment, doesn't mean I need to see them. Arcana checks remove too much power from the DM, since he can never hide anything from PCs. I.e. there is no chance of failure. And yes, at-will with a 1-minute casting time is virtually unlimited.

arcana arcana arcana skill checks. /sigh. I've heard it way too much. They broke their own rules by not even making detect/dispell magic an official at-will power for wizards, but instead hid it inside a feat. And why the 1 minute duration???? What if I absolutely must know if that object is magical ---right now? during combat? CANNOT BE DONE in 4E.

And y'all wonder why I think those rules are busted and on rails. The system is dead...RIP ...why are we even discussing this??? We can make a poll and ask if detect magic should be at-will or not...it's HUGELY powerful to know where magic is at no cost. While others search the room, the wizard scans, it doesn't slow the party down at all, it just makes it an "automatic action". Anything that's an automatic thing to do is a sign of OP ness. Way too powerful for one feat too, or even for free at level 1 for a wizard (or likely, at any level). I just really find magic in 4e felt unmagical, mundane, and frankly, too commonplace and boring. Do not want in DDN. Let's keep some mystery going.

Life shouldn't be convenient for PCs, there shouldn't be bright green arrows pointing to every clickable/worthwhile item onmouseover in the dungeon.

 

[Henry]

Detect magic ability, in all other editions of the game, are a very limited resource. It's something you might do when you are at a treasure horde and have to pick and chose what to carry home, or when you think there may be a magical trap or effect but need confirmation, yay or nay, to make a better decision.

...except for Pathfinder, which, semantics aside, is a version of D&D, and arguably the most popular version in print right now; in PF, detect magic is at will, and it really doesn't affect 3.x style play very much in my experience. I'd hazard a guess that, though it might affect your groups style of play as you describe, it isn't the rule for the majority of groups out there. For every group I've been in, what ended up happening is similar; e group would gather any items that looked conceivably magical, and would cast detect magic on the whole pile at one time. Someone pinging detect magic / arcana skill 24x7 is theoretically possible, but in practice its real end result is speeding up game play and lessening the "gotcha" aspects of players who forgot to check that the spoon in the orc's gruel in the guardroom was really a Murlynd's spoon, and the pus-picker on the ettin's corpse was really a dagger +1. Some players liked it, but most I'd wager don't, which is why even paizo's version minimizes this aspect.

 

[pemerton]

I've been in several exploration situations in different groups where arcana was used like a tricorder to scan for magic items, in every single room of the dungeon. And before you say that's cheesy, that's exactly what adventurers hunting treasure should be doing as a matter of course, using their abilities to their maximum benefit, similar to the ten foot pole used to check for traps in previous editions. In fact, it was used to "clean" dungeons of magic loot post monster wipage. It removes the selective, discriminate use of detection spells and reduces it to basically, all magic items in the dungeon might as well be glowing. That is what I dislike about it.

This is an affront to the "exploration" pillar, since it removes mystery and any chance of failure (i.e. missing any magic items in a dungeon).

<snip>

Again, yet another instance of why 4e <snippage> was just a lazy hack to speed up exploration in favor of getting quicker to the next encounter.

I could quibble with the description of 4e as a "lazy hack" - I personally think it's a pretty tightly designed game. But you are correct that it is not particularly aimed at exploration play. That's been pretty obvious, in my opinion, since some time before it's release. In the context of magic items this is doubly clear, given that - via the parcel mechanic and the wishlist system - magic items are treated as an element of PC build, not as a system of player reward.

Everybody knows Arcana + Perception are the two uber skills in 4e to have.

But I don't agree with this. Of 5 PCs in my game, only one is trained in Perception and only two in Arcana. Whereas 4 are trained in Religion, 3 in Diplomacy and 3 in Insight.

Which skills are more or less "uber" I think is going to vary quite a bit from table to table. For example, from what I've just said you can probably infer some features of my game pretty easily.

[What if I absolutely must know if that object is magical ---right now? during combat? CANNOT BE DONE in 4E.

This isn't true either. That would fall under the improvisation rules for skills in the Essentials skill lists, and/or under p 42 in the DMG. That means it's subject to GM adjudication, and hence will differ from table to table, but that's not at all the same thing as "cannot be done".

 

[Obryn]

Life shouldn't be convenient for PCs, there shouldn't be bright green arrows pointing to every clickable/worthwhile item onmouseover in the dungeon.

DETECT MAGIC THROUGH THE AGES:

BX/BECMI: Gather everything interesting-looking in a room. Cast Detect Magic.
1e: Gather everything interesting-looking in a room. Cast Detect Magic.
2e: Gather everything interesting-looking in a room. Cast Detect Magic.
3e: Gather some interesting stuff together. Use your ultra-cheap Wand of Detect Magic.
4e: Make a fairly challenging skill check and spend a minute focusing. Bypass buying a wand.

I dunno, all of these seem kind of routine and I'm the sort who'd rather cut the routine bits out and focus on the next challenge.

Edit:

in PF, detect magic is at will

So in Pathfinder, you can detect magic 10x more often than in 4e. Which is either 14,400 times a day, or 10x virtually unlimited. (Without a skill check.)

-O

 

[Henry]

So in Pathfinder, you can detect magic 10x more often than in 4e. Which is either 14,400 times a day, or 10x virtually unlimited. (Without a skill check.)

-O

Well, say three times more often, because you have to concentrate for three rounds to get strength, direction, number of auras, all that jazz.

 

[Sage Genesis]

Gorgoroth:

Ok first of all, good grief! When you use words like "obscene" and "an affront" to refer to how detecting magic works in an elf-pretend game... really sounds over the top. Ease up a bit man.

A few minor points first. You make quite a few assumptions, like when you say "before you say that's cheesy". Except I wouldn't. Because it doesn't sound cheesy to me at all. Like Obryn said, it used to be that people put all items on a pile and then scanned them. The 4e version is slightly more convenient but also less convoluted and lame. Oh and dispelling magic uses the Dispel Magic spell, actually.

More importantly, you talk about affronts and unbalance, and I think what's really going on is that you have a very different playstyle than 4e does. Which makes neither of you wrong, just ill-suited for one another. 4e is more about the "Warlords and Warlocks" whereas it sounds to me that you're more of a "Dungeoncrawling & Demons" type of guy, who enjoys the aspect of frugal rationing of abilities over the course of a day, where the challenge is slightly more "zoomed out" to a dungeoncrawling strategy level rather than the encounter tactical level. (I would provide the link that explains these terms better, but the forum software doesn't yet allow me to as an anti-spam measure. Maybe someone else can.)

 

[Klaus]

...

Instead of seeing it as a Tricorder sweep on every room, you can look at it from the narrative side:

"What is it, wizard?"
"... there is magic at work here."

The mechanics are the same: at every room, the player (or the DM, in secret) is rolling the Arcana check. Or even better, knowing that the character will do this, the DM is free to simply announce when something doesn't feel natural. Arcana-based Detect Magic frees up players and DMs to focus on the story side of things: when magic is present in the dungeon, the wizard who devoted his entire life to its study can sense it. The spell-based Detect Magic is much more analogous to the "tricorder sweep".